Odd Women by George Gissing

At the Sydney Writers Festival this month there was one book whose name came up time and time again, a novel published in the mid 1800s, and revered by writers such as Vivian Gornick, Hanya Yanagihara and Drusilla Mjodeska: Odd Women. So I downloaded it - free of charge for heavens sake! - on iBooks and plunged in. I could not put this book down. What a joy to read something where the conversation was all absorbing. Indeed I'm not sure I can think of another book where I have responded in such a way; it's nearly always the plot, or the character development or sometimes simply the language that carries me through a novel. But here, it was the argument. I can't compete with a genius-woman like vivian Gornick, so here's her take on the book which absolutely sums up everything I have been thinking. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/odd-women

Purity by Jonathan Franzen

I love Jonathan Franzen, I really do. It’s his way with words, a sort of cutting to the bone in his prose that is somehow elegant in style, if not in content. His language is real. However, the premise for this book is really nothing short of ridiculous. It’s about a girl searching for her identity and through an elaborate plot, which reads like some sort of conspiracy theory, she finds her way. It is utterly unbelievable. I’ve had this sort of problem with his wacky stories before, specifically the guy who runs off to South America in the last novel of his I read. Mostly Franzen’s humour and language redeem him, but this time the book was so very long – about 800 pages or something – and with so much silliness in it that I really can’t forgive him!